The Journey Continues .... and we all join

Wow what a year so far it has been for so many. 

So many significant events have come, gone and some still carry on, that the chaos of change has, and I think I can say honestly, all of us swirling!

Standing Rock called everyone out of the sleep! It asked us were we really serious about protecting this planet, our children and grand children, and standing on the brink for what we believed was true.  It also held up to us who we might be appropriating an expression of spirituality that wasn't ours. 

Black Live Matter showed us our privilege as a White race. It really asked us to own it or go home. 

The election of Donald Trump showed us how deeply asleep we were, how disconnected from each other, and asked us were we really serious about equality and freedom.

Still the journey continues and how are we going to travel? What is really important to you? Do you really walk your talk? Is your spirituality based on Indigenous tribes that aren't our ancestry? Is our privilege harming those we say we fight to protect?

Is love and light going to change the world? Is the love we say we offer strong enough?

Are we sharing and teaching from our ancestral medicine? Are we sharing and teaching to make a buck?  Is our wildness really ours? Is it really expressed? Do we own it?

These are questions that only we can answer. 

For me, I have focused my uncovering on my ancestral medicine. As I learn, I am finding that other memories, doorways, and mentors enter my life. My ancestral wisdom and healing comes flowing up into my consciousness. The unconscious patterns come forward. I have a choice to change them, create healing around them or embrace them as a way of being. There is a wisdom in the simple life they lived. Yes it was hard and often short but it was full and free. I am not naive enough to think the Irish famine was a walk in the park or any other hardship many of our ancestors experienced. Slavery certainly wasn't a joy. It was filled with violence and hatred.

Our ancestors did find a moment to love and feel joy. A human experience isn't without its pitfalls and persecutions. I do believe that they had a connection to the land that we only glimpse. They had a connection to a deeper story steeped in a sacred living. It was this deeper sacred story that helped them to wake each morning. It helped them to bring life into the world that was harsh. 

As I relinquish the many possessions in my life I find a simplicity. I have more time to be on the land whether it is in hiking or walking around town. I am in the world enjoying its various flavors and humans. My ancestral medicine contains within it a responsibility to protect, preserve, love, and relish the land, these crazy humans, and amazing animals. It is the combination of this spiritual ownership with the celebration of our value that brings about joy, strength and eventually change.

I would gladly go back to the Neolithic Age where we lived in communion with the land, people and animals. Where the magic of our life sustained us and helped to birth new life. When we looked to the Stars and knew we were connected to a greater expansive existence. When we didn't need to conquer in order to feel whole.

As white Europeans, especially Americans, we have lost our medicine. This loss has created a constant search for wholeness. Our souls ache, our bodies ache, our minds wander in search for the magic, the connection, and the communion our ancestors knew.

For me it is time to own the past, present and future darkness of hatred and greed as well as the lightness of the joys and love. 

Join me, there is room for all.

Traveling on ~

The Soul Traveler

The Prelude .....

I love the word Prelude.  It speaks of such beautiful anticipation.  It lays the ground work for the masterpiece.  In music it sets the stage for the grand suite or fugue.

In the aspect of your life it offers so many options, tweaks, and creativity.  It is the juiciness of design, the excitement of the inspirations, and the core of creation.  Your aspirations shine during the prelude leading further down the path. Prelude can take many forms and speaks to your psyche as to the process that resonates with you.  

For me sometimes it is the prelude where I get stuck.  Do I approach the Prelude this way or that causing me to not allow the flow  I am not one to be uncomfortable for long, either a solution appears or one must move on. So over careful reflection, I have come to understand that Prelude is not to be rushed. There isn't a time limit to its creation and when allowed to flow guides itself. Prelude is not the incubation period. It is the creative introduction, the stage setting for the Masterpiece. Creating the Prelude is as valuable as the masterpiece itself.

As another marking of time begins what will be your Prelude?  How will you approach your masterpiece? Will you give yourself permission to flow into the anticipation.  

Is discovering your muse, your prelude without linear time important to you? Giving rise to understanding that time does not control our outcomes removes suppression of our soul song line. We are so geared to time limits in our daily life that we often rush to push our creative work out into the world too soon. Does your new healing modalities or creative offerings have a self imposed expiration date? Is the launching date driven by the world at large or the panic of missing the prospect of joining the bandwagon of others?  Are you listening closely to your Soul Song line and imbuing your Prelude with soulful creative energy allowing it to steep?

It isn't unusual to feel the push to get your creations out into the world 'just in time'. If you watch a true creative person they move differently. They listen intensely to a different drumbeat that draws their creations along. If you ask them they will do their best to explain how they create. Just remember it is how they create, their soul song line they hear and follow, not yours.

2017 is a 1 year in Numerology. A #1 year is all about new beginnings and the energies of #1 are perfect to begin your Prelude.  Astrology is another modality that speaks of cycles and spirals not linear time.  The movement of the Stars are very much a symphony.  They take center stage on cue, moving forward or retrograde back to a repeating stanza. 

Your soul doesn't do linear time.  Your soul doesn't do human.  It does soul.  It sings a song that flows and swirls.  It doubles back, surges forward, pauses, and plays. Its time rhythm is to visualize, listen, and dance.  Soul song lines have no beginning and no end. They just are truly movement. 

We live in a linear society so how do we walk in two worlds? There are many tools available to support you in straddling many worlds. Check your toolbox and see which work best.  Reach out for new tools or a refresher course. Play with your old tools in new ways,  Play and build your Prelude.

How does one connect with your soul song line? Hum a few bars, sway a bit, 2 twirls and a sigh should just about get you there .... Come play with me and I'll help you hear your soul song line.

Happy Fresh Beginnings! Come play with me any Time xxoo

Traveling on ~ The Soul Traveler

Fireside Chat with Crones ~ February

Having decided to change the format of these wonderful chats to the Equinox & Solstice, I found myself missing my monthly creativity.  Today I sat down, communed with spirit and compiled a short video expressing the wisdom, serenity and love of our Elders in Nature.  Enjoy!

~ The Soul Traveler

Fireside Chat with Crones - Suzanne Wigginton

There are those moments in time when what you imagine an event could be and what takes place do not disappoint.  Those are special times and are often marked by divinity's essence and blessing.

The Fireside Chat for October waited to appear until the end of the month.  The taping was originally scheduled for the evening of October 21 and that morning I rose knowing that there would be a need to reschedule.  I reached out to Suzanne offering flexibility and it was readily accepted.  Not concerned about moving it to the next week and sending supporting energy to Suzanne, I glanced at the calendar discovering that Mercury would not be going direct until Saturday, October 25, and giggled.  The Universe knows the normal computer challenges I still wrestle with in the creation of these chats and once again had interceded on our behalf.   I am not one to shy away from Mercury retrogrades and often welcome the opportunity to use that time to review and tweak my growth yet I do honor its placement in our lives and know it can be a trickster.

Arriving at our scheduled time the next week came with a lightness and no rushing in preparing for the chat.  The moment proceeded to descend into its slot with a very distinct flavor of beauty.  It is really hard to explain in words and yet this particular flavor of beauty is very present within the video.

Working and chatting with Suzanne has always brought both of us many moments of deep Ah-ha's and pivotal shifts for our individual lives.  It is a friendship that developed during our shamanic apprenticeship 3 years ago, blossomed on a trip to Ireland, and matured over many a night of giggling and honesty.  Reflecting as I write this, I really shouldn't have been surprised that the imagined exchange between us became a reality.

Our discussion reflects the steps we have taken into our crone years.  I, being baptized into my crone-hood several years ago and Suzanne just inching her way onto the crone path, both of us represent the higher request - to ignite the light for crones anywhere on their path, mentor those to come, and bring back into the world the beauty of the wisdom of the elders.

Reaching a 'certain age' one should have it all by then, have it all accomplished and as we chatted, .... "hope you have accomplished everything you set out to do...Well WHY???  I still have the magic and majesty of my Crone years now to create something else altogether if I choose to........ and that's a piece I think we are missing overall a piece we have lost."  

As women, we should all be cookie bakers and apron wearers but by who's standards?  Cookies and aprons are needed in the world as well as the Maxine's.  Life hasn't ended just because we are crones.

As long time crones, new crones, or just embarking, what is it we so want to accomplish before we depart? What is it that we can bring to this world that helps mentor all of us, all women, men, & children, past, present and future?  To know the magic of the world, to just be in it, is one of the many gifts the crone brings to the world.  To understand that we, as crones, come full circle and are back in the energy of the divine child is a much needed quality in this world.  What inner child dreams are whispering to you to come full circle and experience?  

There is so much depth in this chat!  I have so enjoyed listening over and over to the exchange of two women desiring to bring more into the world, bring to all who have experienced a disconnect to the empowerment of our later wisdom years. We don't have the answers but we are willing to ask the questions hoping to ignite the light in the darkness that has laid dormant for women generation after generation of the wisdom that comes from living our lives as fully as we can.  We ALL hold a piece for each other.  

I hope you enjoy this chat as much as we enjoyed creating it.  I am honored to have Suzanne be apart of this much bigger piece that the Universe is driving.

I welcome your comments, thoughts, and dreams.  Being a crone is about being you, the divine essence that is here now, asking to be given a voice, a signature that will add upon the light brightening this awesome aspect of life...... the final journey.  

And the journey continues ~ The Soul Traveler

Connect with Suzanne here ~ 

Website www.suzannewigginton.com

Email suzanne@suzannewigginton.com

Souls Aloft Radio www.blogtalkradio.com/suzannewigginton

FB  www.facebook.com/timeforyou

And so .....

As the months of 2014 ebb and flow to us, I realize that I have been on a 7 month journey of unemployment insurance that has drawn to an end.  

I know without a shadow of doubt that I am not the same woman who looked out into the world on November 27, 2013.  I cannot even remember who she was.  There is a tad bit of a memory of how she felt and an understanding of her story.  There is a deeper understanding of how the story dissolved, the realization of a stronger essence of her, and a willingness to feel into the moment and hold no expectation, no opinion of what is to be. 

Oh the journey was complete with wildness, back-ups, and delight.  It carried me to a place I had desired to hold deeply.  It carried me out into a jungle replete with tangles, rushing water, and mystery.  The adventure did not disappoint.  It has no ending.

I am truly blessed with the opportunity to focus solely on my path.  And these last 7 months allowed a deeper involvement into uncovering this path.  It enabled me to bring into my daily life a realization of how my path, even the search of it, was individualized from others. 

Through this time a stronger concise understanding of who I was, coupled with a releasing of old patterns and beliefs, balanced by acceptance of the value of illusion moved me into an empathy of self and my community.  The freedom to lay about, wander the mountain top, grovel in the frustrations, and epitomize standardization pushed me to turn and deny the existence of self; to die to myself as I had never imagined.

There has been a shamans death experience, a mystics evaporation, and yet what I was being asked for did not contain another level of these prerequisites to soul evolution.  I have experienced a burning to the ground, the severing of the leash, but I had not experienced the dying to myself.  The dying took place sudden with the realization of the ask, moved into flowing with the demands of daily life, and ended in an ancient ritual that almost seemed uneventful.  It was the forward motion after the dying that emphasized the Divine's request.  

Every time I looked to draw a frame of reference the screen was blank.  It wasn't just the screen of Future but the screen of Past that lay black and empty.  Only the place of Here and Now held any form or design.  Anything presenting itself to me was met with nothing but what I knew to be true for me.  Trying to decipher anything has been unsettling.

The unsettling is not in being unable to fit in or know the direction.  The unsettling is learning to walk completely within the present.  It is learning that where I once related in life with others is non-existent and non-essential.  It is non-identifying.  It cannot relate to me as much as I cannot relate to it.  In the midst of all of it, there is laughter, joy, tears, love, and a completeness.  A focus of all is finished within itself bringing with it a solid sense of self without identity.  

Spirit has said others have experienced this and many will join in the dying to themselves.  Everyone will be offered, not all will accept, and all will continue along their path.

Having words to express this past 9 months has been very difficult.  Having words to express this newest endeavor has been even more difficult.  It has not mattered that there are no words.  It does not matter if I ever climb the mountain top, it no longer matters what I hold dear, where I wander, who I meet or don't meet, how I show up to the world is all that matters.  Do I come with my heart open, my mind quiet, my eyes bright, my ears listening, and my tongue gentle? Do I come willing to share everything including the unacceptable?  Do I come each day willing to make it a good day to die?  Do I come prepared to return to the primordial juices?  Am I willing to live outside the perceived existence of all that matters?  Am I willing to be the ancient?  Am I willing to hold past, present, future completely within me?

These questions may seem to be those we all ask ourselves daily.  This time there is a very large difference in asking them.  We all know being who we truly are means living with hearts open, mind quiet, listening, no opinions, etc., and yet this is different.  

Dying to yourself means you cannot do anything else but show up as an unidentifiable person.  You cannot be You.  You can only Be.

The Soul Traveler

Fireside Chat with Crones

This came to me as a whim.  Little did I know that it was a serious request from Spirit and how well the subject would be accepted.  For me I have felt so often the need for a crone or elder wisdom keeper in my life.  Even now as I step further into my crone shoes I relish the time I have with other elders.  The joy, freedom, and community present is palpable and revealing of the quintessential gift from those times.  

I thought about how best to create a genre that would bring eldership and crones back out into the world for not only our youth but also for other crones & elders.  Creating a video series gave me the opportunity to show the physical and inner beauty of our Wisdom Keepers. Our American society focuses on youthfulness and often times considers women over 50 as "out to pasture" leaving a mark on the beauty of aging for only one sex - female.  We know as crones that it is the inner beauty that shines through and brings the gifts.  Now is the time to step forward proudly, with confidence and compassion, bringing back into our society the true gorgeous essence of the crone.  The world needs us now more than ever.  

I hope you enjoy these series of videos.  I know I enjoyed creating them, learning the technical side, and look forward to sharing the wisdom of the elders.  Each month I will feature a woman who exemplifies the wisdom crone.

Sit back grab a cup or glass of your favorite beverage and enjoy.  Feel free to comment below where we will interact with you.  Also, please visit us on Facebook at Fireside Chats: Wisdom Keepers

I would like to introduce Wendy Weatherwax who was gracious enough to be my first guest on Fireside Chat with Crones.  Please feel free to comment below.  Also visit our page on Facebook at Fireside Chats - Wisdom Keepers

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